When I took on the job of chief firearms instructor at my former agency, I made a couple of changes that I thought were realistic:
1. Any qualification has to be done cold. In otherwords, the qualification attempt must be the first rounds you put down range for the day. There are no warm ups in real life, nor should there be in qualification. You should be able to do it first thing, and on demand any time. There is only one attempt allowed daily.
2. There are no alibi shots. If your gun malfunctions, or even if the ammo has a dud (other than a bullet stuck in the barrel), fix it and get back in the fight. We allowed. tremendous latitude for officers to choose the type, brand, and caliber of their weapon, so they sure as hell can't blame me if it doesn't work. If you fail to get a qualifying score for whatever reason, you fail. I don't care if it is the gun, ammo, or your trigger finger that fails to work properly..make it work, or go home.
3. While 80% was the required score by the state, I wanted 100% of the hits at least on the target. The greatest distance was from 25 yards, and was supported on a barrel or barricade, so it isn't like we were asking for tiny groups. Target was about the size of an IPSC target.
qualification course was 25 rounds starting 25 yards from the target and getting closer with each different string of fire.
At first some of the officers who struggled to qualify complained, but they adapted to it, and became better shooters as a result.
